It all began innocently enough. My brother-in-law Holly was over at the house a couple of Sundays ago, when he overheard my wife Linda talking about how much she hated the flowered wallpaper border in our family room – something we inherited when we bought the house four years ago.

Holly pointed out how easy it would be to just pull the whole thing off. Sure enough, the next thing I knew, my entire family was tugging on flowered wallpaper from all directions.

Personally, I had no objection to the death of the flowered wallpaper. Not because I hated it, but because in four years of living here, I’m pretty sure I never noticed it. » (Read More)

It’s important to learn how frequently you should contact your subscribers. But just what do you talk about with them from the very first encounters all the way up to when they have a lot of knowledge about your company and what you do?

Be Honest and Give Them Useful Information

When you first make contact with them, you should treat it just as if you are meeting a new person for the first time. You wouldn’t » (Read More)

I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. Last week, in no uncertain terms, my daughter, Emily, told me that I was cut off. Done. Finished…

…No longer would I be permitted to borrow her iPod when I went to the gym.

First of all, according to Emily, I was “getting it all sweaty.” Second, and much less disgustingly, I was “running down the battery life,” a phenomenon which was apparently wreaking havoc on her finely tuned listening schedule. And while I considered pointing out that she had been running down my battery life for the previous 12 years, I had to admit that Emily had a point. » (Read More)

We’ve all been in a high pressure sales situation as a buyer. And, if you are like me, the only thing you wanted to do was run away!

The most effective salesmen create a relationship with the buyer and give him or her the information necessary to make a smart decision. Salesmen who help in this way usually have buyers pressuring them to sell them the car. Instead of running away, the buyer might say, “I’ve done my research and this is the car for me! I’m ready to buy.” » (Read More)

May I speak frankly? I’ve been on crutches for three weeks now and have come to one, simple conclusion: There’s nothing very convenient about it.

You can’t carry anything; you can’t find a good place to put the crutches when you’re sitting in a restaurant, or a movie theater, or an airplane; and you may as well not even bother trying to take care of business in a public restroom.

No, my friend, I’m sorry to say that crutches add nothing to your overall speed and mobility, a fact that explains why so few land mammals have evolved to the point where they are born with these appendages already attached. » (Read More)

With all the examples of modern technology surrounding us today – e-mail, iPods, toaster waffles, etc. – I have to say that the one I find most amazing is the cell phone.

It’s incredible enough that you can make a call from any place at any time to anyone else in the world. But to me, what’s most remarkable is that someone can dial your number, and no matter where you are, the system instantly finds you and puts the call through. (Unless of course, you’re in the supermarket and your wife is calling, in which case it waits until just after you’ve gone through the checkout line.) » (Read More)

“I write to find out what I am writing about.”

– Henry Miller

One question that comes up often when I speak to business people about E-Newsletters is, “How important is it for us to write original content?” I’ve been fielding this particular question long enough to know that what’s really being asked is, “Can we just get somebody else to write this for us?”

Much to the disappointment of the questioners, my answer has always been a resounding, “No!” » (Read More)

Back when we were fresh out of college, my friend Tom told me his theory about picking up women: The better looking you are, the more time you have to make a good impression on a stranger.

If you’re average looking, Tom concluded, you have about two minutes. A little better than average, a little more time. A little worse than average, a little less time. In my case unfortunately, this worked out to negative time, which essentially meant that I had to make a good impression on a woman about 30 seconds before I arrived.

In any case, and while I’m not sure about the numerical accuracy of Tom’s conclusions, I do think that he had a valid point in general: First impressions matter, and the more intriguing something is at the beginning — for whatever reason — the more willing we are to give it a chance to prove itself. » (Read More)

One newsletter I wrote posed several questions regarding unsolicited e-mail, and concluded with a request for your views on what was appropriate and what was not when it comes to interacting with newsletter subscribers.

The response was amazing! Not only did I get a ton of replies, but the range of feelings and points of view was all over the map. Some examples from either end of the continuum: » (Read More)